Celebrating Amateur Golf

Lorne Rubenstein

Lorne Rubenstein

The Scottish Open is on this week while the Open Championship goes next week. Given my predilection towards links golf, it’s my favourite time of the golf year. At the same time, I was again reminded earlier this week that there’s plenty to revel in during this period when it comes to amateur golf.

As it happens, I was invited to speak at a dinner on Monday at the St. Thomas Golf and Country Club, where the Ontario Amateur would start the next day. It will conclude tomorrow, and Garrett Rank, the highly accomplished 30-year-old amateur and NHL referee from Elmira, Ont. who played in the recent U.S. Open, shot 66-69 to take a six-shot lead after the first two rounds. You never know in golf, but it would be a surprise if Rank doesn’t win. Tournament reports from Morris Dalla Costa are here.

Anyway, I played the challenging course before the dinner with my friend Norm Mogil, the 1962 Canadian Junior champion. Mary Ann Hayward, a Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member and a St. Thomas member, was in our group and at the dinner. Let’s see. She’s won four Canadian Amateurs, three Canadian Women’s Seniors, the Canadian Mid-Amateur and the 2005 U.S. Mid-Amateur.

Recently, she shot 75 at the Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio during a qualifying round for this week’s inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at the Chicago Golf Club. She got into a playoff but didn’t make it to Chicago. So what is she doing this week? She’s caddying for fellow St. Thomas member Cam Kellett in the Ontario Am. He opened 73-74 and was tied for 15th.

Playing with Hayward was a treat. What a swing. She gets the club into the same position at the top of her swing every time — or so it seemed to me. Norm and I admired her consistent slightly right to left ball flight, which was allied to superb control. I asked her if at 58 she still retained the competitive fire.

“I do,” she said, and added that she needs to keep that fire burning to compete against her friend Judith Kyrinis, a member of The Thornhill Club who won the 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Kyrinis has also won the last three Ontario Senior Women’s Championships, the 2016 Canadian Women’s Senior Championship, and more. She participated last month in a celebration of golf at Shinnecock Hills during the week of the U.S. Open, to which all 2017 USGA champions were invited, and she’s in this week’s U.S Senior Women’s Open.

Copyright USGAJudith Kyrinis

Meanwhile, back at St. Thomas on Monday evening, the dinner that Golf Ontario organized was its own celebration of golf. Gary Cowan attended, along with five-time Ontario Amateur and two-time Canadian Amateur champion Warren Sye. They were among six golfers invited who had won both the Ontario Amateur and the Early Bird tournament at St. Thomas. That 36-hole event is the traditional annual opener for the Ontario amateur competitive circuit. Moe Norman won the first Early Bird in 1949 and then won it a couple of more times before turning pro.

Brennan Little, a longtime member of St. Thomas, was also at the dinner after playing the course. The club was inducting him into its Hall of Fame. He’s from the area and you might know him because he’s been rather successful as a caddie on the PGA Tour. He’s also a very good player, and a PGA professional. Little, 48, caddied for Mike Weir when he won the 2003 Masters. He’s also caddied for Sean O’Hair and Camillo Villegas. He’s working now for Gary Woodland, the powerful PGA Tour player who won the Waste Management Phoenix Open last February.

Little is off to Carnoustie this weekend to caddie for Woodland at the Open. He first caddied in the Open when Weir qualified for and made the cut in the 1999 championship at Carnoustie. There’s no reason Woodland shouldn’t be in the mix come the final round on July 22nd, especially if he can ride a hot putter. It’s often all about the putter when it comes to winning.

At the dinner, Little spoke with feeling about what belonging to St. Thomas for so many years has meant to him. He sat with Cowan, Sye and the other Ontario Amateur and Early Bird winners: Len Foran, Kelly Roberts, Drew Symons and Bill Hutcheson. The evening was all about celebrating golf, and kudos to the club, Golf Ontario and the Investors Group, the main sponsor of the Ontario Amateur, for making it happen. It was an honour to speak to everybody who attended.

Meanwhile, across the country in British Columbia, the B.C. Amateur is also going on this week at Rivershore Golf Links in Kamloops. Doug Roxburgh, a Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member and winner of everything in Canadian amateur golf, is playing his 52nd B.C. Amateur. Need I say that he made the cut easily, shooting 73-74 to do that by five shots? That was only the 50th time he has made the cut. Roxburgh, 66, has won four Canadian Amateurs and 13 B.C. Amateurs. He’s been a member forever of the Marine Drive Golf Club in Vancouver.

I should add that the B.C. Women’s Amateur is also on this week. Yes, there’s plenty to follow on the amateur scene. I suggest you follow Brad Ziemer if you want to keep up with what’s going on in B.C. And you can also stay in touch with what every player is doing at the Ontario Amateur here. Rank now has a seven-shot lead through nine holes of the third round as I write.

A final picture has lodged in my mind’s eye from the dinner. Cowan, the 1961 Canadian Amateur and 1966 and 1971 U.S. Amateur champion from Kitchener who needs no introduction, was nonetheless introduced during the dinner. He rose at his table, and then the applause started. He sat down as the applause built into a standing ovation. We were saying thank you to Cowan for his accomplishments, but, I think he would agree, our thanks were for something else as well.

I felt we were acknowledging the importance of amateur golf. Professional golf is by far the part of the game to which we pay so much attention, and that won’t change. But it was a pleasure to be among amateur golfers Monday night, along with some of the members of a club that has hosted many national and provincial amateur championships. I was impressed when I learned that 110 St. Thomas members are volunteering this week.

Wonderful. Three days later, I still feel the buzz. Here’s to amateur golf.